FOUR OF US MADE THE PAPERS AIN’T NONE OF US SEEN THE GRAVE YET…

We'll get back to the old Bay Area content in-a-minute, but right now I gotta take a station break to shine light on a raw talent from the Bronx.

Bounce yer fists together and then cross your arms up. BX all day. Money Boss don’t play. I don’t know how old this is, but I can’t stop bumpin’ it. When Cheeba points out his drinkin’ buddy I crack up. Just had to give it some shine, shit is too dope, right down to the handmade khaki posse shirt. Ill! This is my current definition of great rapping, look no further.

For this next joint, just jet to the 2:40 mark and peep E.C.'s verse, not that the stuff that comes before it isn't dope, but these two performances by this almost totally overlooked emcee really beg the question: Why isn't a dude with this much skills and personality getting more recognition? Eddie Cheeba from Money Boss for president, I don't give a fuck. And for the record: Drinkin' Hen in the street outta see-thru plastic cups is the shit.

THIRD SIGHT “MURDER DEATH KILL” LIVE VIDEO

To further honor Spiderman, here’s a clip of one of his favorite local rap groups, Third Sight, performing their anti-social 12” single “Murder Death Kill” for the Fuck Pop Convention at Maritime Hall sometime between 2001 and 2002 (I forget when exactly). Third Sight’s onstage line-up at that point consisted of Jihad (lead emcee), Sir Limpdic (aka Fat Flash) and Palo Alto’s own Insomniac (as the back-up emcees), DuFunk (on production), and the prince of darkness himself D-Styles (from ISP/Beat Junkies/Gunkhole) on the 1s and 2s. Ken and Juan (Jihad the Roughneck) were good friends, and for a while Jihad (when between brief moments of actual employment) was somewhat of a fixture on the Monday Beatdown and always ready with a grimey 15 min.+ freestyle whenever Ken gave him the cue (anybody got tapes of that?). This performance is deadly and the 12” is even better. These long-dreaded brothers used to stalk Bay Area stages like ring-wraiths with lyrics culled from the minds of serial killers, and cheesy kool-aid-smiling, and all that jokey-smurf shit, was NOT part of the program. Watch how fast Jihad puts all that party-good-time shit to a cease when he steps on the set. Ken wasn’t around to see this performance in person, but his spirit is right there in the front row yokin’ up posers and punchin’ ‘em in the face.

murderdeathkill

SCAMS, SCANS & GRAMS

I admit, I fell behind with working on the blog the past couple weeks. Tomorrow is the two year anniversary of ROBME and it kinda snuck up on us. I had an idea for a special megapost, but it became somewhat of a larger project than I anticipated so it will not see the light of day for a minute. BUT we do have some DOPE exclusive shit that will be dropping later this week. Just need to hook up the RCA's and clean the tape heads. STAY TUNED!! So in the meantime and inbetween time, I figured I'd drop some recent discoveries I made in the mess that is the ROBME archives.

First off is a an old flier from an Rob One appearance at Cat's Alley which was put together by the legendary DJ Stef and her Vinyl Exchange. Next we got a short interview with Kool Keith, TR Love and Kutmasta Kurt circa 1994 from a SF graffiti mag called Hole In The Ozone: In that same issue of Hole In The Ozone there was this cool stream of conscious page put together by DJ Sake 1: "Anyone who has the original colored sleeve Super Disco Breaks (Winley) is like my older brother." Amen to that.
Then we have an issue of the Bay Area Hip Hop Coalition newsletter from September 1998. The BAHHC was a group radio DJ's united together to promote hip hop in the Bay. Check the calendar page to see just how poppin shit was back in 98. Damn...

SPIDERMAN: THE MONDAY BEATDOWN, WINTER 98

Our good friend the Black Stamp has blessed us with another tape from his mysterious shed of analog treats. This time it's a 60 minute tape with 2 excerpts from a late 1998 episode of Spiderman's Monday Beatdown radio show which was on 89.7FM KFJC. For us heads in the Bay, the Monday Beatdown started your week off on right foot and I was a loyal listener. Spiderman aka Ken Hamilton's knowledge of music was deep and far beyond the typical college radio hip hop DJ of the time. Just check out this playlist that has Albert Ayler going into Boogiemonsters and Mystik Journeymen followed by Crass. Robert Goulet? It was Ken who first turned me onto the madness of Christian Marclay. Ken also worked at Cue's and other local record spots further casting out his net for the dopest cuts. Ken was killed in a car accident in 2000 and the airwaves have never been the same since.

RIP Ken Hamilton aka the Spiderman, May 14, 1973 - December 22, 2000.

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SNAFU!: RANDOM BAG CHECK - CHARLOTTE, COMPTON

I found this one while digging in San Diego with the Funeral Shock guys. The store (the name escapes right now) had a bunch of hip hop 12"s priced at .50 and dude was saying all hip hop was half price. Shit. For .25 I couldn't pass up a private press looking joint from Compton with a song called "Blunt Smokers". What I heard when the needle hit the wax had me bugged though. Rugged East Coast hip hop with mad cuts and samples. The stoned as fuck horn in "Blunt Smokers" is on the same vibe JVC Force was when they chopped Freda Payne till she sounded like a psych-fuzz guitar guru straight whylin'. PLUS you get a remixed version that's basically whole different track and no clean versions! This is programmed for the late night, incense and weed radio show crowd. The B side "Light It Up" continues down a hazy path of 8 bit chops. "Light it up and drink a brew with Snafu!" AND they hit you with a remix of this one too, damn. Why waste the space with radio edits? These guys knew their shit was in that piffed out, late night college radio zone.

Since I couldn't find it on Discogs (or anywhere really), I took to googling everyone listed on the label. First thing I found was I found was rapper S.C. Miles giving producer Ron B. a shout out on a page on his website. Well, I started this post about a year ago and I just checked the bookmark for S.C. Miles' website and the site no longer exists! Eventually I found Ron B.'s Myspace page and sent him a message to see if he would be down to enlighten me on the creation of this 12". In spite of not having logged into that page for months, I eventually did receive a response:

Sorry to just get back to you but I have been really busy workin and trying to make beats and be a dad but, YEAH!! thas sounds good to me!!! hit me with the questions and we can go from there....SNAFU is not together anymore but we still talk on the regular...just hit me up!!

Ron B: Ghost in the Machine

I sent some questions and to this day have not received a reply. This was in January so I'm assuming Ron either forgot or is just too damn busy. He did up some new tracks on his page since I last checked it so at least he's still making beats. My main question was how did a rap group from NC drop a 12" on a Compton, CA label in 1995, on the cusp the full blown East vs. West era.

Further searching revealed the Compton connection: co-executive producer Scotty Spencer (aka Scotty D) is a LA hip hop LEGEND who apparently was the first person ever to play a young King Tee tracks by the likes of Mixmaster Spade and Uncle Jamm's Army. Damn, shit is all coming together! King Tee would later give Scotty a shout out on his Mixmaster Spade collab "Ya Better Bring a Gun". Scotty says he was the equivalent of Dapper Dan on the West Coast making custom sweatsuits for OG LA hip hop crews. Unfortunately there isn't a whole lot of info on the web regarding Scotty D, however that may all be changing with the release of the forthcoming documentary (put together by Lemonlime from the OG West Coast Crew) "How the West Was 1". Check the trailer:



So how did LA's Scotty D link up with North Cackalack's Snafu? Apparently that is a story for another time and place. It's good to know Ron B. is still making beats and Scotty D is still out there reppin' real hip hop.

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